Mancos mounts counteroffensive to highway plan

Mancos mounts counteroffensive to highway plan

Feb. 17, 2001

By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor

A petition drive launched in Mancos on Thursday aims to modify imminent highway changes by the Colorado Department of Transportation. Petitioners say the changes would be devastating to businesses while adding nothing to the safety of the U.S. 160/State Highway 184 intersection.

The key provisions of the petition call for CDOT to:

• Install a stoplight at the US 160/SH 184 intersection.

• Establish 35 mph as the permanent speed limit on U.S. 160 through the town of Mancos.

• Establish the frontage roads as one-way streets, directing traffic away from the intersection to keep traffic from diverting through residential areas and school zones and to "maintain minimal access to businesses."

The petition sums up the signers’ position thus:

"This community does not view its people as expendable for the sake of maintaining rapid traffic flow. We will not tolerate another child being killed on that highway before CDOT finally realizes that people and communities are more important than accommodating high-speed automobile and truck traffic."

Petitioners are concerned that CDOT actions, as proposed for this spring, will close access to businesses, divert emergency, business and tourist travel through residential areas and be accompanied by an increase in speed limits. Not only will safety along the highway not be increased, petitioners say, reduced access to highway businesses will seriously harm the town’s economy.

In addition to numerous fender-benders and injury accidents over four decades, the intersection was the site of fatal accidents in November 1999 and March 2000.

In the latter incident, 12-year-old Kiley Duran was killed on March 17 when she tried to cross U.S. 160 at the intersection. Following her death, hundreds of people turned out to demonstrate at the intersection, calling for a 35-mph speed limit, a stoplight and other improvements.

At that time, Montezuma County Sheriff Joey Chavez called for CDOT to lower the speed limit through the town limits to 35 mph. He also recommended rumble strips on both highways and said "the flashing lights need to be upgraded with 35-mph speed limit signs attached."

Chavez expressed concern about a temporary stoplight, which he said would result in "total chaos in this intersection" unless all frontage roads were blocked off.

Since then, CDOT has put a flashing light over the intersection, lowered the speed limit to 40 mph for approximately four blocks (with 35 mph recommended through the intersection), and installed cautionary lights and signs along the highways.

With its consultant, Wilson & Co., CDOT has developed plans for reconstruction of the intersection and changes to highway access through the town of Mancos. The current plan would provide four full-movement interchanges through Mancos, with a stoplight at the intersection of the highways and potentially up to three more stoplights in the future.

Based on one of several options drawn up by a consultant to the town, the long-range plan (with a 2004 completion date) provides accesses to businesses and proposes to increase the speed through Mancos to 45 mph.

However, in a Jan. 30 letter to Mancos Mayor Greg Rath, CDOT Regional Transportation Director Richard Reynolds stated:

"We want to be clear with respect to the changes that the Town can expect in order to prevent any surprises this summer. We will be installing a traffic signal control box, wiring, traffic signal poles, traffic signals, widening the pavement for right turn lanes, trenching and installing conduit for the signals and flashing beacons, grading and drainage work, striping and permanent signage. All of this necessitates the installation of concrete barriers across the frontage roads and eliminating any possible access to and from the frontage roads directly onto SH184."

Reynolds said the tentative schedule for this work includes advertisement for contractor bids in March 2001, with the construction phase lasting through mid-June 2001.

The Mancos Mayor’s Transportation Committee (at first called the Bypass Committee) was appointed in January to assemble points of view and reach a community consensus on the town’s needs regarding safety and access.

At the committee’s meeting on Feb. 13, members recommended drafting a petition to circulate in the community, addressed to CDOT but with the intent of letting elected officials know the magnitude of Mancos Valley concern. The petition also urges calling the Governor’s Transportation Advocate at (800) 999-4997 to express opinions about the petition’s recommendation.

The petition, with modifications, was approved by the town board Wednesday evening on a split vote, and the Transportation Committee met again Thursday to fine-tune the wording.

At that meeting, committee members reaffirmed that their first priority is a 35-mph speed limit (preferably extended westward to at least the Overlook Village area, where a number of students cross the highway to and from school).

The second priority is a stoplight at the intersection, accompanied by one-way frontage roads, providing business access from, but not to, the intersection (see map).

Committee members were heartened by a Durango Herald story on Feb. 14 in which Herald staff writer Shirena Trujillo quoted CDOT consultant Bryan Foote’s explanation for the proposed change: "By moving it over, we avoid impact on businesses. . . .Less impacts was a primary goal."

Petitioners are hoping enough signatures can be obtained to get CDOT to adopt their proposed modifications for this year’s actions, buying time to work out a more acceptable long-range solution.

The petitions are available at numerous Mancos businesses and copies will be available at the Performance Center during today’s Mancos-Dolores basketball game and at the concurrent Navajo-taco dinner in the school cafeteria.